Women suffer a tough loss to St. Norbert

Almost followed in the footsteps of football

by: Mallory Mulvihill
Sports Editor

The Fight Scots women’s volleyball team traveled to De Pere, Wisc. this weekend to fight for a spot in the national playoffs. The Fighting Scots earned a bye into the second round by finishing second in the conference and looked to take on the winners of Lake Forest and Ripon on Fri. Nov. 4.

Lake Forest ended up edging Ripon in the first round and began to prepare for a previous loss to the women earlier in the year at Lake Forest on their homecoming. The Scots defeated the Foresters in four games and took control of the game from the start with scores of: 28-30, 32-30, 30-16, 30-27.

“All cylinders were running for us against Lake Forest. We completely controlled the match from the first serve,” said Coach Kari Shimmin. “We served well and had nine aces in the game. We basically just shut them down in every aspect.”

Kendra James, Karissa Murray, and Colleen Wilkin kept up their stellar play into the tournament. James finished with a blistering 19 kills in the match and three blocks. Murray played outstanding keeping up her all around fantastic play with 13 kills, two aces, 10 digs, and three blocks of her own. Wilkin kept up her play with 49 assists and one ace of her own. Wilkin consistently puts up over 40 assists again as a sophomore. Freshmen Crystal Myers played well at the libero as she has all season and had 14 digs.

The Scots watched as St. Norbert played a strong Beloit team. Beloit almost pulled off an upset against the Green Knights, but watched the Knights win in five games and improve their record to 29-6.

The Scots lost a heartbreaker to the Knights in the Midwest Conference Crossover tournament in which Shimmin believed they should have won, but lost due to hitting errors.

The Green Knights and the Scots faced off for the tournament title and a trip to the NCAA Division III playoffs on Sat. Nov. 5. The women anxiously awaited the first serve of the game as the Scots played in their first championship game in 19 years and a chance for Monmouth College’s first ever trip to the playoffs.

The women came out strong and on the prowl to revenge the loss earlier in the season. The type of enthusiasm and aggressiveness that the women played on Fri. against Lake Forest carried on into the Norbert game. The women played strong through the first three matches and went into the fourth match up 2-1 and feeling the championship at their fingertips.

The fourth game was a tough one to swallow as the Scots lost in a close one 27-30. “There were a few calls that didn’t go our way and it affected the way that we played,” said Shimmin.

“The fourth game was a huge momentum change for us. Our serve receive broke down and our defense broke down for us a few times. We needed to have all of our hitters attacking and at times we just had one. We had a few missed serves that were key at that point in the game. We just had a team breakdown.”

The momentum swing took the Green Knights in the fifth and final game beating the women 15-10. “This one was just a tough game to swallow. We had so many goals for the year that we wanted to accomplish. We were so close. The girls just feel like it wasn’t a satisfactory ending to the season,” commented Shimmin. The final scores of the match were: 30-28, 28-30, 30-27, 27-30, 15-10. Norbert will take on a strong Plateville team in the first round of the tournament.

Murray, again, had another amazing performance as she wouldn’t give up and wouldn’t let the St. Norbert game be the last game of her career. In her final college volleyball game, she lead the Scots with a huge 25 kills to go along with 15 digs. James contributed a high number of kills with 15 and five blocks. Jessica Travis continued her steady play and added 10 as did Ashley Yeast. Myers continued to lead the defense with 27 digs.

Murray, the lone senior on the team, finished the two day tournament with 38 kills. She finished out the season with 346 kills, 413 digs, and a team high 76 aces.

“Karissa had such a great weekend. She was playing the best volleyball at the end of her senior year. She’s a complete player. She plays well defensively. We will definitely miss her,” said Shimmin.

Next year will bring a lot to the Fighting Scots and the volleyball program. The Scots lose only one player to graduation and return one upperclassman to the varsity squad. The entire rest of the team is made up of sophomores and freshmen. Wilkin returns after tying the single season assist record with 1, 331.

“We have good leadership coming back next year. I’m not really thinking about next year quite yet. I’m still trying to take this season in. We were so close. We are still very young. We have a lot of freshmen and everybody is already starting to work in the off season,” said Shimmin.